Higher air pressure: Pirelli reacts to Silverstone tire damage

(Motorsport-Total.com) – Tire manufacturer Pirelli reacted to the tire damage in the final phase of the British Tremendous Prix and set higher minimum pressures for the second race at Silverstone . The choice of softer blends should remain this weekend: Instead of C1, C2 and C3, the Italians bring C2, C3 and C4 to the circuit.

Contrary to all misgivings, the softer compounds are not a risk: “The investigation showed that the cause of the original pressure loss was the load on the design of the tire,” says Pirelli supervisor Mario Isola. “For this reason, we are increasing the tire pressure for the next race because the pressure helps the construction of course.”

The minimum pressure in the front tires is increased by 2 psi for the anniversary tremendous prix , on the rear tires by 1 psi. One wants to stay with the softer compounds because the compound has nothing to do with the damage.

The fact that the tires at Valtteri Bottas, Lewis Hamilton and Carlos Sainz broke is due to the special circumstances attributed. Rapidly all drivers had stopped in lap 12 and got the hard tires to drive through to the end of the race to be able to. Usually Pirelli only has a stop in the rounds 18 until 20.

Crazy Tires and other circumstances

“And you have to consider that the pressure behind the safety car goes down. And in the After the safety car segment, the pressure rises again, “explains Isola. “After the restart you have a very fast curve in which a lot of energy goes into the tires. Usually we consider something like this when we make our specifications. Telemetry has shown that the energy level was very high.”

The safety car plus the long stint and the fact that worn tires are less protected would have resulted in pressure loss. “If you look at the tires, both sidewalls were still in the right region. The ring around the tread was broken – and that’s the typical voice when you drive off the tires,” he says.

Isola expects the softer tire compound to give more pit stops next weekend will lead. Because only Romain Grosjean drove laps 36 on the media on Sunday, which will be the hard tire this week. “And his tires were completely over,” said the Italian. “I can hardly believe that they can do anything more than 30.”

debris possible factor

Another voice were numerous cuts in some tires – Crimson Bull team boss Christian Horner spoke of 50 in Max’s tire Stape. According to Pirelli, these are presumably due to the debris from Kimi Raikkonen’s front wing.

The tire from Williams driver Nicholas Latifi even got a flat tire and air on the way back to the field after the race lost. “I can confirm that there were debris on the track,” said Isola. Whether these would have contributed to the tire damage of Hamilton, Bottas and Sainz in the end cannot be completely ruled out.

“It is clear that if there is a lot of wear and tear without rubber on the tread, the construction is less protected and therefore more vulnerable, “says Isola. “Every influence on the construction has a different effect. And every piece of debris becomes more dangerous because it can damage the construction and thus trigger the damage.”